Graphene electronics for terahertz electron-beam radiation

By virtue of their distinctive electronic properties (including linear energy dispersion, large velocity, and potentially ultra-high mobility even at room temperature), charge carriers in single-layer graphene are uniquely suited to radiation mechanisms that so far have been the primary domain of electron beams in vacuum-based systems. Here, we consider the use of sinusoidally corrugated graphene sheets for the generation of THz light based on a fundamentally new cyclotron-like radiation process, which does not require the application of any external magnetic field. Instead, periodic angular motion under bias is simply produced by the graphene mechanical corrugation, combined with its two-dimensional nature which ensures that the carrier trajectories perfectly conform to the corrugation. Numerical simulations indicate that technologically significant output power levels can correspondingly be obtained at geometrically tunable THz frequencies. This mechanism (as well as similar electron-beam radiation processes such as the Smith-Purcell and Cherenkov effects in periodic nanostructures) may open the way for a new family of THz optoelectronic devices based on graphene, including solid-state 'free-electron' lasers potentially capable of room-temperature operation.